Wednesday, November 14, 2012

During typical tournament and friendly games, questions regarding cover saves ALWAYS arise, so today we are going to discuss a few things you may or may not know about them-

The first thing we'll discus is ruins. Most people play them as area terrain and are under the impression that should you be in them, you receive a 4+ cover save. This is not correct. As they are area terrain, you receive a 5+ cover save and only get the 4+ if the model is physically blocked by part of the ruins.

As long as we're discussing area terrain, here is another tidbit- going to ground will normally grant you a +1 bonus to your cover save, but going to ground in area terrain confers a +2 bonus! This coincidentally means that if you're in ruins that are area terrain, go to ground, and are 25% obscured you get a 2+ save! Some people may argue with this that the +2 only applies to the save granted by the area terrain, but the benefit from going to ground in area terrain applies to all the models cover, not just that granted by the area terrain.

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An important change to note with 6th edition is also that area terrain has no effect on models shooting out of it, unless their target is actually obscured.

Hopefully this will make your future dealings with cover saves more understandable!

Deployment wasDawn of war and the primary objective was KP. Neither of us deployed anything. My opponent failed to sieze.

Turn : I roll on the middle of the table with the land raiders in front and the razorbacks behind them. On his turn, he rolls up into his rght corner and castles up. He gets a lucky night fight roll and proceeds to blow up one of my razorbacks..... roughs start.

Turn 2 : I close the gap with the raiders and pop smoke on the lead raider, the other gets cover from the first. The razorbacks fire away, blowing the arm off a dreadnought, wrecking two razorbacks, and stunning the chimera with the grand master. On his turn he disembarks the purifiers from the chimera and pumps everything into my smoked raider and through the shrouding and smoke, shrugs everything off.

Turn 3: I move the front raider all the way up and disembark 4' from his grand masters unit. Shooing sees another razorback die and the dreadnought with it's arm blown off immobilized. In the assault phase I charge the grandmasters unit, and the chimera next to them with the techmarine. My psychotrole grenades do nothing, but his make my assains I1 so we strike at the same time. He tries to cast some psychic powers, but my libby hoods all of them. I hammer hands and might of titans to make myself S6 and one of my assassins doubles out his grandmaster (yay rad grenades) and the assassins kill all the purifiers and the techmarine blows up the chimera. He kills 3 assassins in response. The assassins consolidate into cover.
On his third turn, he tries to kill the diesmbarked assassins but again shouding and cover see 3 of them survive.

Turn 4: The assassins move towards one of the psydreads and the other land raider lights up the third dreadnought and it explodes. The lascannons bust open the other chimera. In the assault phase the assassins charge a dreadnought and a razorback and with a little help from might of titan, destroy both of them.
On his turn, he concedes.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

I'm going to clear up a few thing that some people get wrong regarding shooting at vehicles. The first issue is which armour value you're firing at. Some people are under the impression that you use a imaginary line 45 degrees from the corner of the vehicle. That's not correct. When determining which armour value you will be firing at you run a line from corner to corner on the vehicle being shot. This means that longer vehicles like chimeras are easier to shoot in the side armour than say, a dreadnought.

Some people also seem to be under the impression that when determining if a vehicle gets cover, 50% of the vehicle needs to be obscured. This is not true. Only 50% of the armour value you are shooting at needs to be in cover, so is entirely reasonably for a vehicle to be over 50% visible and still get a cover save.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Time for the Grey Knights.A little different from other armies, GK’s present a conundrum–the point of
Fang and Steel is to leave behind no support elements…but GK’s have excellent
support units (their Dreads).Just the way it is. So you’ll have to carry your fire support elements
forward instead. They also don’t have Predators, so we need to substitute
Chimeras in that role.

Really? You're going to substitute predators for chimeras? You won't take psyflemen dread because you think they can't move forward? This is whay an article sounds like if the author actually has no idea what he's talking about.

Since we’re building a GK force, we want to be able to clear enemy chaff out
of the way with flamers so our jump troops can hit where they need to. As GK
jump troops are only good due to Halberds plus Storm Bolters…and are inferior in
every other way, we’ll do good to remember they, like Seraphim, are a shooty
unit that gets clear shots then delivers a CC strike. They are NOT a CC unit
first!

Hmmmm..... GK jump troops are inferior in close combat apparently. Power weapons, I6, and hammerhands must suck these days!

These units are jokes. Super expensive shitty Imperial Guard units with BS3. Sweet. You get 3 BS3 meltaguns in a chimera and think it's on par with a predator. That's cute. One of the worst units in this list.

Heavy bolter razorbacks are terrible. Even at S6. Nobody cares about them. They can only glance a chimera and irritate marines. Blood Angels laugh at them and Paladins don't give a fuck. If you're going to spam razorbacks, why don't you equip them so people will notice?

More useless garbage. 8 man squads so you can't combat squad. Master crafting to waste points too. What are these here for? Nobody cares about this unit at all. Maybe Stelek will explain...

Notes: The GK jump squads are intentionally sized the way they are so you
cannot combat squad them. Assault troops with LD8 are just no good! If you know
you are going to lose a battle with them but feel you have to, then pin the tail
on the donkey and get the inquisitor to join them. His job, however, is not to
provide rad grenades (you lazy fucks) but to give you another mobile heavy
flamer that can go elsewhere and beat up a squad that’s bunched up. If you don’t
like your meltagun acolytes carrying storm bolters, just change it.

Assault troops with ld8 are no good, but melta squads with ld8 are.... hmmm.... On a side note, this paragraph is only borderline coherent,

What this army is doing is putting fire support elements into midfield, then
using jump troops to keep people away. They might not be great CC units, but if
you don’t have Terminators…they will smash your face 90% of the time.

I can't think of an army that 16 jump troops can keep away. You know the best part about this army? Tau would wreck it. How sad is that? There isn't a single S8 shot over '12 and the one's that are are bs3 meltaguns.

Most of these 'tactics' sound like a load of bullshit that a GW red shirt trying to sell a shitty army to a noob would say. I'd say Stelek should don a red shirt, but I doubt he wants to jeopardize his unemployment, and there is no way the shirt would fit.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

For those guard players, have you ever absolutely needed to keep a unit at bay? Well there is an almost guaranteed method, provided you have ordanance barrage and at least a unit of 8 psykers.

If it is absolutely necessary, you can reduce a unit to leadership 2. You can then fire ordanance barrage at the unit which reduces their leadership all the way to 1. Mission accomplished. Automatically pinned, even if you only kill 1. It is important to remember that snake eyes on 2d6 only automatically pass morale checks, not pinning checks.

This is incredibly situational, but 3 griffons and a unit of battle psykers almost guarantee controlling a non fearless unit when you absolutely need it.

This list is pretty straight forward. If I go first, then I will move everything forward around the raiders and pop smoke. On their turn I will enjoy my (hopefully) 3+ cover save from the shrouding. Turn 2, I light everything up and charge what I can.

It benefits from a great deal of firepower while being literally unmatched in hand to hand armies. The vindicair is there to take out techmarines (or other characters with grenades) or to destroy enemy vehicles.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Most 'competitive' players at grand tournaments cheat in one way or another, whether it's intentionally forgetting the rules or downright cheating. Here are some examples that I've personally witnessed....

An example of so called 'forgetting the rules' involves Nick Nanaveti, the guy who won the NOVA invitational this year. He attempted to cheat in front of me at Mechanicon 2010. He charged two units with blood crushers that were '15 apart and left a '12 gap between his models and pretended to be ignorant of the rules. I pointed it out to a judge who addressed the issue, but he has played enough to know the rules. To attempt such shennanigans which merely play on the ignorance of his opponent should have landed him a disqualification.

Then there is blatant cheating, which is shown by Stelek in this video....

at 33 minutes in, his long fang pack leader dies, which means he will have to move to regain coherency and not be able to fire, he picks up a missile and blatantly moves it so he won't have to.

There will always be more subtle cheating that these examples, but one thing to remember is, if you're playing somebody at a GT with a reputation for 'winning', they often cheat in some small (or big) way. Keep yours eyes open!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The INAT, which is a set of so called rules clarifications are a bit of a joke. In many instances, the writers ignore the main rule book in several instances... here is an example.

◊GK.54A.01 – Q: Do all of the wounds caused by an Independent Character or Dreadknight with an ‘active’ Nemesis Force Weapon inflict ‘Instant Death’ (or is only a single wounded enemy model affected as with standard Force Weapons)? A: Yes, once an IC/Dreadknight ‘activates’ his Nemesis Force Weapon all wounds inflicted by him for the phase inflict ‘Instant Death’ [clarification].

Another instance of screwing up the basic rules...

GK.37G.01 – Q: If a unit without Personal Teleporters disembarks using ‘Shadow Skies’, scatters and ends up actually landing in difficult/dangerous terrain, do they take two dangerous terrain tests or just one? A: Two. First when the unit scatters and again when the surviving models are actually placed into the difficult/dangerous terrain [clarification]. Ref: BA.38J.01, IG.56C.01

..since you are only ever required to take one dangerous terrain test in a single phase. A few of the writers play Tyranids so it would only be fitting if they did what they could to make their own army better, right? Here is an example...

GK.54E.01 – Q: Based on GW’s official Grey Knight & Tyranid FAQs can you please clarify what happens in combat when a model armed with a Nemesis Force Halberd and a model with a Tyranid Lash Whip are in base contact with each other? A: The Lash Whip’s Initiative reduction takes precedence over the Halberd’s +2 Initiative bonus [clarification].

This contradicts their 'clarification' for the psychotroke grenade result that reduces models to initiative 1....

GK.60F.04 – Q: If a model suffering from the Psychotroke Grenade ‘The world is spinning’ result has a rule that boosts their Initiative, how is this resolved? A: ‘The world is spinning’ reduces a model’s Initiative before any other modifiers in the Assault phase are applied. So, for example, an assaulting model with ‘Furious Charge’ would strike at I2 and an Eldar Banshee would still have I10 in the first round of an assault [clarification]. There are many more dumb rulings in the INAT that you may be able to find, I'm just done going through it for now. Post up more inconsistencies and errors if you find them!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Welcome to a new segment called 'Conversions in dismay'. It is basically 'Armies in dismay' for single model conversions or unit conversions. No models will be posted that I even think that the owner didn't put forth some effort. This is only for those terrible conversions that are made by die hard competitive blowhards with zero respect for the hobby aspect of the game. As is the tradition with the 'dismay' articles, we'll start with something by the scourge of the interwebz.... Stelek!
To begin his conversion he took a Carnifex! Then he cut off the tip of the gun and glued on the tip of a bigger gun! Then he said 'DONE"!!!!!! OMG!!!!!! He even used the wrong sized base!

The mission was killpoints(not good for me), table quarters, and HQ closest to the center. Deployment was spearhead and I won the roll to go first so I set up as far forward as I could, with the two land raiders full of assassins and characters in the center, flanked by the razorbacks and the dreadknight just behind.

He deployed in a line across his deployment zone with all his units about 7 inches back so I couldn't assault cannon him on turn 1.

TURN 1: I move forward with everything cautiosly about 6 inches, except for the dreadknight who moved '12 to behind a building in the center of the board. No shooting. He then shuffles his stuff to the side.

At this point, I'm thinking it's going to be a standoff for the whole game since his 2d6 melta range is '18 and my charge range is '21(about).....

TURN 2: I shuffle a bit forward, trying to guess between '18 and '21 from him and fire assault cannons, downing 2 marines. yay. He responds by moving one unit towards the center to lure me out of my land raiders, then proceeds to place his unitsa little farther back.

TURN 3: I knowingly take the bait with my dreadknight and fly towards him while the rest of my army sits and shoots to little avail. During the assault phase The dreadknight charged in killing 3 and taking a wound to a power fist. They hold. On his turn he moves Mephiston up to help out his boys in killing the dreadknight and moves sanguinor just up behind to grant them all the +1 attack. Mephiston then charges in and wounds the dreadknight twice (his powers were hooded, including the force weapon) and the dreadknight responds by wounding mephiston twice. The dreadknight then dies to combat res....boo. He consolidates '3 back and tries to surround mephiston but lacks the room.

TURN 4: Both Land raiders come screaming up around the center building and dropping their compliments next to the unit, sanguinor and mephiston, they then pop smoke. I skip shooting and get right to business. The unit with techmarine and coteaz hits the assault marines and mephiston, while the unit with the libby and techmarine hit the unit and sanguinor. The only model I move into base to base with the sanguinor was the techmarine. Combat finds mephiston and all the assault marines dead. The sanguinor then slays the hapless techmarine. Both my units pile into the sanguinor. His turn he is in a conundrum. He decides to move two units to one side of the sanguinor to see if they can kill one assassin unit in hand to hand. He moves his only other unit at a land raider. with 3 meltas in 2d6 range. During his shooting I use 'the shrouding' and so he pens the land raider 3 times, but I make all my 3+ cover saves. He then charges into one assassin unit with both his assault marines. Before the marines get to go, the sanguinor and all but one marine and priest die to the assassins. Those two die to combat resolution. I then consolidate 1' away from his last unit that tried to mleta my land raider.

TURN 5: Knowing his assault marines are about to be violated and his army tabled, he concedes.
It was a great game and he was a great opponent. Can't wait till out next game!

Monday, February 20, 2012

A quick bit of rules knowledge for some who may not know...
When a unit of yours is getting shot and you think I'm going to be assaulted anyway, hold the phone. If the charging unit lacks frag grenades -or- you have defensive grenades, that might be a bad move. If an assaulting unit lacks frag grenades but charges a unit in cover, they will strike at their own initiative because the asssaulted unit is 'not set to receive the charge'. Defensive grenades also don't work if the unit equipped with them has gone to ground.

Lots of instant death weapons to deal with paladins, and enough shooting to beat any army at range. This is the list I'm aiming for with my zombie guard. The platoon is there only to bubble wrap the chimeras and buy them an extra turn vs. assault armies.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Welcome to 'Armies in Dismay', where I post pictures of terribly painted, or unpainted armies at Grand Tournaments and National events that are suppose to have an enforced painting requirement. I will not post armies that look mediocre simply because the owner lacks the skill or experience, as I used to be in that boat, but only armies that look bad simply because they were rushed for the tournament or obviously lazy. I hope this article ultimately encourages people to try harder.
Today we have a janky Skaven army I had to play against at last year's Adepticon in Chicago! He uses cat toys for hellpit abominations and pocket lint for basing! -and, for the record.... the third pic is supposed to be slaves and the last pic is a warp lightning cannon I think.

Some people (mostly ork players) like to get Independent character rules wrong regarding joining and leaving units.
It is common for some players to attach Ghazghkull to a unit of 30 boys... which in turn causes the entire unit to suffer from slow and purposeful. Those players often then declare that Ghazghkull is leaving the unit to trudge ahead. Let's say for instance that he moves '4. They then take the boy unit he was with and moves them up '6 and re-attaches Ghaz to them. This is not legal....
An independent character only counts as having left a unit if he is out of coherency with it at the END of the movement phase, so he can't leave the unit and rejoin it in the same turn.
This also means that should you join a normal infantry IC to a squad of jump troops, the jump troops may only move a max of '6 in the same turn the IC left.
Some people also have a tendency to 'say' an IC has left a unit, but if he ends his move within '2 of another unit, he's a part of it regardless of the intentions of the controlling player.
Anotherpoint to remember is that if you have an IC as part of a heavy weapons squad and then move him out of of the unit, the heavy weapons team still counts as having moved and so can't fire.
These are just some things to remember, especially at tournements, where Ghaz getting across the board one turn sooner can be huge.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

So are chaos dreadnoughts worth it? In short, yes. Now they are. I liked them before but nevr truly thought they were worth it due to the fire frenzy. The latest FAQ has made fire frenzy advantageous, though.

Before the last FAQ, when the dreadnought fire frenzied it shot at the closest unit it could see. It used the walker rules of pivoting in the shooting phase so it could fire all the way around itself. Now, though it's arc is only 45 degrees. This means that a dreadnought with a plasma cannon will now get two shots at the nearest unit it can see, which, if you are a reasonably competant player should only ever be the enemy. It is particularly useful if you have lash.

In my opinion, Lash and chaos dreads were made for each other, especially now. If you fire frenzy, great! Two plasma cannon shots at whatever I lash in front of him. If he Rages, great! I'll lash something towards him!

at 120pts for a chaos dread with a plasma cannon and extra armour... yes please.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Most people I know play blast weapons incorrectly. Most people say I want to fire the missile at that unit using frag and then they measure and find that the unit is just within range so they place the template at the front of the unit. This is wrong.

Blast templates are placed prior to ANY measuring range. You then measure and if the center of the blast is outside the range of the weapon it is an automatic miss. This also applies when using a Grek Knight heavy incinerator or a hellhound inferno cannon. You place the flame template, then measure to make sure the small end is within '12.

Welcome to 'Armies in Dismay', where I post pictures of terribly painted, or unpainted armies at Grand Tournaments and National events that are suppose to have an enforced painting requirement. I will not post armies that look mediocre simply because the owner lacks the skill or experience, as I used to be in that boat, but only armies that look bad simply because they were rushed for the tournament or obviously lazy. I hope this article ultimately encourages people to try harder.

First up is Stelek's Space Wolves from NOVA open! Primed white, washed blue, and not based. Sounds like the kind of army everyone wants to play, doesn't it! ;P

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

With the release of the most recent FAQ, Black Templars have become quite the force to be reckoned with. Since their storm shields now offer a 3++ save all the time rather than the 4++ in close combat they used to, they are indeed excellent.

The best thing, however they have to offer is army wide preferred enemy and furious charge terminators. Throw a unit of 7 and the Emporer's Champ in a crusader and you have a threat to nearly anything that moves, with 28 S5 I5 attacks re-rolling to hit and wound. Seems good, right?

The other thing you get is all the goodies that come with an old codex, the big one's being- power of the machine spirit on Vindicators, 5 man marine squads with lasannon plasma gun, and best of all, dozer blades on your land raider. That's right. It's the one army where that rotted wood fence won't be immobilizing your land raider. Blessed hull is pretty good but too expensive for all comers lists....

To show how nasty they can be, here is a quick army that's pretty damn good.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The other day I came up with the idea to make an Imperial Guard army of zombies.... so I opened up the web browser turns out I didn't come up with the idea. I will, however, try to be the first one who has a zombie IG army that looks good.

I decided to start my new army by creating some veteran squads. To start I have decided to use

the KINGS OF WAR UNDEAD REGIMENT BOX. Why The zombies look way better than the GW ones and a box costs $35 for 30 zombies. Then I will dig up some loose Cadian helmets from the heavy weapons teams and drill them out a little so they fit on my new hapless zombies heads. I will then put other IG bits on them and give them lasguns and plasma guns in various poses.

I should have a unit, or at least a few models done soon and I'll post up some pics!

Monday, January 16, 2012

First post from Master Shake, here. Just wanted to address a recent post by Stelek, Scourge of the interwebz.

He recently made a post about a list by TPM over at his blog embracingtheblackrage.blogspot.com . The list was a fairly optimized competitive list involving Draigo, 10 Paladins, and some other goodies. (If you want to read more about it, I encourage you to head over to his blog and check it out). The post by Stelek was nothing but an obnoxious rambling by an inferior player.

Let's break down the participants in this one sided dispute shall we:

According to rankings HQ, TPM ws the highest ranked 40k player in America for most of 2011 with several Grand tournament wins, including the 2011 Adepticon team championship.

Stelek is not ranked anywhere near the top with no GT wins. As a matter of fact, most GT's won't let him attend.

Now let's break down the article:

First thing he says is "I know, I know, Blackmoor beat with it"..... hmmm..... Is it possible Stelek is just angry he can't beat it so he trys to throw his limited influence around the interwebz hoping other people don't take it?

Next he points out that his Space wolf list can chew up ten paladins, Draigo, Coteaz, and the techmarine using his missile launchers and lascannons. Apparently, in the world of Stelek, Missile launchers must be AP2. 5 Single shot lascannons would be no problem if only there was a model in there with eternal warrior and a storm shield.... oh wait.

Next he says "is this a joke? Two dreads and three razorbacks are supposed to stop my tanks?". The answer is yes. God knows he can't kill them since all his lascannons would be irritating Draigo.

That's about all he had to say- which basically amounts to nothing worthwhile. He continues on in his comment section justifying his loss to deathstar paladins at NOVA by blaming terrain and cheating.

None of this even addresses player ability. Track records speak for themselves. If he thinks he can beat TPM's list, perhaps Stelek should challenge TPM himself. I doubt that will happen though, given what happened when he challenged Marc Parker.